AMD Does Not Rule Out ARM-Based Solutions for Clients.

Even though the first ARM-based project from Advanced Micro Devices will be aimed at the market of cloud servers, the company does not rule out a possibility to release consumer solutions featuring ARM architecture. In fact, partnership with ARM opens AMD the doors to the market of smartphones and low-power media tablets.

As it appears, AMD became an ARM licensee in mid-2011, but the two companies kept the agreement under wraps. As a result, AMD secretly has been working with ARM for more than a year now on a variety of different projects, according to the company. The firms did not disclose which projects they were working on, but it is logical to assume that they involved solutions for different markets. At present, the company neither confirms, nor denies possible consumer system-on-chips with ARM cores.

“We view ARM as a strategic partner and expect that our relationship will continue to grow over time. Today we are focused on the immediate opportunity for ARM in the server space where we believe AMD can provide a unique leadership solution,” a statement by AMD reads.

Sunnyvale, California-based chip designer notes that the dense and cloud server markets represent the most immediate growth opportunity for AMD to offer a differentiated solution based on its unique IP and experience. Large data center annual CapEx spend is growing at 33.3%, and AMD can provide customers with disruptive technologies and choice in this space, which is why it concentrates on servers first.

While system-on-chips for servers represent a clear interest for AMD, as it will be the only company with proven experience on the market of server processors with its ARM-based Opteron SoCs, servers will not let AMD to leverage all of its capabilities and intellectual property.

For example, server chips will not use AMD’s leading-edge graphics technology. In a bid to actually take advantage of its graphics processing capabilities, AMD will need to make ARM-powered SoCs for media tablets or smartphones. However, to be competitive, the company will first need to license or get communication and some other technologies first. When that happens is completely unclear.

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So much for 123 and Avon's slinging of mud against AMD and their idea that AMD + ARM will not affect the consumer. Even funnier is that I got tons of downvotes for stating the obvious. Watch this comment section turn into another war zone of mud flinging as they completely miss the point, ignore the arguments, and reduce to raging 12 year old boys with all caps.

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And it still a very bad idea I knew AMD was going to go thought with it. Hey YOU ASKED FOR IT SO OF COURSE THAT IS WHAT'S going to happen. I also know that AMD + ARM will affect the consumer because it will and not in a positive way. AMD can't shrink their GPU to sub 1 watt power usage so they are going to use more power than anyone else.

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@mmstick
You silly i already said that long before xbitlabs posted this article. For low powered devices yes, its common sense mmstick you did not need xbitlabs to tell you this.
But for high end desktops its a NO. In fact AMD may be permanatly off this market for good this time.

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Well if they can grow in other markets they might survive but i still have my doubts. This is just desperate moves from RR because he knows he f**ked up badly and it might be to late.
But for serious desktop users it is definatly over.
I am not into low powered devices crap.
And you are correct 123, lots of AMD fans has already moved to Intel and there is more to come. Its just a small portion left of them that are still resisting "The die hard AMD fan-boys" still hoping that AMD might give them what they need but their wait is useless. Eventually they will leave AMD behind as well and it will be soon forgoten.
As to why AMD ended up in this situation it is very simple really. The irony is that RR and nearly everybody that is currently in the company said that we listen to our customers. They don't know jack shit about their customers. LoL That was RR bigest mistake, 90% of their customers were Desktop users, you cant all of a suden just switch markets. That is why AMD went down to its knees. RR failed to deliver and weakened the company on top of that with criticaly wrong decisions.

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Next STOP AMD H**L. I am into low power devices AvONbaCK and they ARE NOT CRAP. I have waited for AMD for LONG ENOUGH. All RR wants to do is make more money and please the board however this will be the final nail in the coffin for AMD.

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@AvONbaCK - Firstly dude, you can't blame a guy who has just joined the company in the last 12 months for any of its longterm strategic ills. Secondly, before you predict the absolute demise of AMD on the desktop, I would hold off your criticism until Steamroller and Excavator - besides being die shrinks, the architectural improvements will be profound. If they're still no great improvement (Piledriver was more incremental), then by all means cover yourselves in mud like little Intel piggies should. (Btw, improvement means power consumption, battery life, user experience and price - not just beating Intel in one metric, CPU single threaded performance).

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Get out of here, there is no place for you in this discussion if you are simply going to speak like that. Single threaded performance is not everything in a CPU, if that were so, we wouldn't have multicore processors. There are many factors that one will find favourable in a processor, from the strength of the FPUs, the instruction sets, the number of Integer execution units, the amount of ALU and AGUs per integer unit, the cache and interconnect speeds. Single threaded performance is but one piece of a giant puzzle. Single threaded performance is already fine, there is room for improvement, but it isn't really bad at all. There isn't a single program that I have found where the single threaded performance of my AMD processor was a downside. However, the multicore performance has produced a lot of favourable results which leads me to believe that either you are using Windows XP with really old outdated applications, or you are really just stupid and drank the Intel Koolaid. Name one program that I can't run well with my FX processor. Many point to games, which only old games are single threaded, but there isn't a single game within my steam list of 400+ games that doesn't run well. Any program that needs a lot of processing power is already highly threaded. Case in point, x264, 3D modeling and rendering, ray tracing, compiling, even video and audio decoding is highly multithreaded.

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I'm afraid not, I have no problems running emulated games with my FX-8120 an Radeon HD 7950. Emulated games arent very intense, PS2 games are actually accelerated by the graphics card. Emulation is therefore highly GPU accelerated, thus highly threaded.

Most games? Where have you been the last few years? Most of my games in my category of 400+ Steam games are multicore, and none of them run badly. I'm still waiting, where is that elusive program of yours that I can't run well?

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I've run plenty of Gamecube, Wii, and PS2 games. Shadow of the Colossus, Star Ocean 3 Till the End of Time, Radiata Stories, Valkyrie Profile, you name it, not a single problem. The GPU does most of the grunt work.

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Not the game I am talking about and I sure they are other that need a lot of CPU power just to be playable. FYI None of those need alot of CPU power and not of those are RPG's d**ba*s. Wrong the GPU only does a small bit of the work unless you use high-res and/or effects like AA and AF.

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Its funny that you say this linuxlowdown.
We all know what was the original plan almost from day one when RR steped his foot into AMD. Remember the "inflection points" speaches from RR?? Remeber the Growth opportunities in other markets speaches and "refrigerators" from RR? LoL Remember The "Its good enough" comments from RR and many more....??? Well guess what, Hard Desktop users were listening and they are not stupid or to be fooled. All this things come and fight you back. That is when they started leaving from AMD. The rest of them were saying AMD needs to focus on APU's and AMD is doing the right thing going where the money is. <-- remember that?? Now you come along and say to me that AMD did not mention anything about leaving the High-End Desktop Market. Yeah sure this is silly statements From "some" AMD fan-boys.

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They never did mention leaving the high end desktop market, but did mention expanding on the lower end and looking into other opportunities to solve existing problems while Intel produces the highest end processors. AMD merely said to not expect them to defeat Intel in performance anytime soon, and that doing so is pointless to begin with. You need to realize that the cost of producing a high end processor is rather exorbitant. Spending a lot of money in R&D for a minute percent improvement to defeat Intel costs more than it is worth, R&D does not scale equally. If they instead focus on spreading their R&D budget to various projects they can essentially become a jack of all trades, no need to be a master of a specific trade. Their CPU charts still have high end processors, you already saw the latest FX-8350, octocore FX processor clocked at 4Ghz and consumes less power than the original FX while also performing ~10% better clock per clock. That was a nice improvement, the real improvements however will be with the next die shrink with steamroller next year. You say these are silly statements from fanboys, but they are certainly more coherent and logical than any statements you have made. You need to learn, Avon, that when you talk like a 12 year old, no one will ever take you seriously. It's time for you to grow up and learn from your mistakes.

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I'm afraid they are, look around for benchmarks of a FX-8150 @ 4Ghz compared to the FX-8350 with its stock frequency of 4Ghz, they achieve 10% higher scores at the same frequency compared to bulldozer. The only people brainwashed here are you.

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Except it is 10% faster clock for clock, which has nothing to do with IPC. The cache improvements in piledriver improved the efficiency, therefore yielding 10% improvement. Don't believe me? Benchmarks don't lie.

You do know how to benchmark right? You know how to read benchmarks? I think you don't.

Here is my proof, where is your proof that there isn't an improvement? Are you going to link us to your benchmark from the rumour mill guy looking for publicity? Openbenchmarking is real world benchmarking with 0% bias. When you run the phoronix benchmark suite, it automatically uploads the results to their global database for all to see. This was a benchmark done to test how well BDv2 compares to BDv1. The conclusion? 10-20% faster at the same clock frequency, depending on the task. The other conclusion is that GCC needs some patches for the new architecture.

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Since when was IPC part of this conversation? I think you should get a clue about what these conversations are about, and if you cannot understand what I am talking about, you need to shut up and listen. I stated Piledriver is 10% faster clock per clock than Bulldozer, you said I was wrong and told me to 'get a clue'. I present evidence to back up my statement and now you want to change the topic. Really now. As I stated in earlier comments, you don't measure how good a processor is based on the IPC. IPC is only one piece of the big puzzle, there are many different types of processors, and there is a reason why each exist. At the same time, there are many different types of instructions, and the number of cycles each instruction requires is different. Even further, Windows synthetic benchmark software forcefully demonstrates AMD with significantly lower IPC than there really is. The Intel C++ compilers they use force AMD processors to use older instruction sets to make it seem as if they need more cycles to execute the same instruction. At Phoronix on Linux, this is not the case, and therefor you get the most accurate, non-biased view of how well each processor architecture stands out.

openbenchmarking.org/result/1210227-RA-AMDFX835085

Demonstrates perfectly how well the new FX processors compare to Intel. The result? 3770k is faster overall, slightly, but still loses in a couple tests. It trades blows with the 3770k well, and it's doing it at 32nm. The power consumption may be 40 watts higher on AMD, but that is not the end of the world, especially when the AMD platform is the most affordable, and we didn't have to buy brand new motherboards in order to get these processors. I've been using the same Sabertooth 990FX since I had used a Phenom II X6 overclocked to 3.8Ghz.

You need to start doing a better job Avon, all you do is chase your tail around all day long while I school you. In the end, you look like a noob to passerby, and I discredit you every time.

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LoL you are full of yourself saying nonsense.
I actually feel sorry for you trying to defend AMD by any means that it takes. Linux is crap that is why nobody uses it. unfortunately we are on windows mmstick. Get a clue.

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So you admit loss by default again. How amusing. To say Linux is crap also shows your lack of experience. Did you not know that Linux dominates the server realm? The Department of Defense, and all the other branches of the governments of the world use Linux. In corporate networks, almost every server is Linux. At the hospital I work for, we have four Ubuntu Servers, and one Windows Server. The Windows server exists as a domain for all the Windows clients, but the Linux servers are for everything else. All desktops will be using Linux at the hospitals eventually, after certain key elements are taken care of. If you want to know what is really crap, it's Windows. If you are a programmer, you would understand me. But apparently you are not a programmer. In all of my programming classes, my programming instructors had Linux on our machines. Why? Linux is the best platform for programming, even for programming Windows applications. What to know what is a nightmare? The crappy C# .NET framework Microsoft invented, and all the internal bugs, errors, and consistency issues caused by Windows. In Linux, this doesn't happen because it is open source, programmers who find bugs instantly fix them for everyone else, code can be thoroughly reviewed. The only thing Windows has over Linux, currently, is a better platform for gaming. This won't be true in the near future however, considering that Valve and the entire Linux community is now majorly focusing on pushing Linux as a gaming platform, so this issue is being addressed. While all the reasonable people switch to Linux, you can stay on winbloat and enjoy your low framerates while we enjoy our clean, well threaded, well scheduled, well programmed environment with better drivers.

Even further, you do realize almost every web server on the Internet is Linux right? All of Google's servers are running their own custom distro of Ubuntu, named Goobuntu. Almost every game host is running Linux. Not even Xbitlabs is running Windows. They are using FreeBSD, yet another *nix system. All of my systems run Ubuntu, except for my main PC which is Windows 7 so that I may game when I feel the need to. It's nice that I can upgrade and run programs across the Internet, or across the LAN, without getting up. Even if a relative is having a problem with their Linux PC, which has never happened so far, I could simply remote to their system through a SSH terminal and fix it within an instant.

You've been thoroughly schooled, time for you to 'get the clue' to get an education. Linux is a vital part of any computer degree, all colleges will have you learning Linux. Linux is growing to be more popular every day. What was once solely for the server world, is now the ultimate, and perfect desktop. I replaced Windows 7 on all my relatives computers with Ubuntu 12.04 six months ago, and they were overjoyed, they still have no problems. In fact, they stated it was much easier and efficient, and faster.

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LoL so lets all use Linux then. LoL And we are not the Department of Defence or running servers and so on....
Get real mmstick all of them are using windows. Nobody gives a damn if you are using linux.
You are to be pitied really.
Hurry up people go and buy the fx crap cause it runs slightly better on linux. LoL Yeah very clever stuff you got there mmstick. You should try and convince gamers also to run linux. Hmmm? LoL

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Ok mmstick lets not fight anymore.
You did bring up some good points, but you must accept the fact that unfortunately Microsoft is dominating. How on earth would everybody start using linux? If they manage to get all the titles of games running on linux then yes i would agree with you. But that will never happen and you know it.

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That will happen, whether you like it or not. Even all of your emulators are running in Linux. Developers who do not port their games, the games will run fine in Wine, which gets better and better every year, with wider support catalog. Just because Microsoft dominates today, doesn't mean it will remain relevant 10 years from now, or even 20 years. Microsoft only dominates desktops. On mobile and server world, it is Linux. Companies wish to move to Linux on their desktop machines as well to save costs.

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Well now is linux chance to do it because many people including me don't like the new windows 8. So they better push things faster now to make it happen or they might not get the same opportunity again. It will be fun for you to wait for 20 years.

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Linux is already doing perfectly fine as is right now. Ubuntu 12.10 is a major success. You can go install it now if you wish, and only use Windows 7 when you want to play Windows games. There is no 'waiting' involved. That time frame is just me predicting the death of Microsoft as an OS and the total domination of Linux over all. Linux evolves far faster than Windows and Mac OSX. Mac OSX, which, is actually just a bunch of stolen open source BSD code with Apples own custom desktop environment.

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You exaggerate way too much, it's about time you got back to reality. By 'vastly underperform', you mean performs 10-15% worse in a few scenarios. By 'uses too much power', you mean consumes 40-60 more watts on average, about 50% higher than Intel's 22nm processors. Sad thing? You do realize that AMD processors are using 32nm fabs right? It's not fair to judge power consumption of an architecture when the two are on entirely different scales. The worst part, you are picking on a processor that is sub 200$, and trying to compare it to Intel's $300+ processors. It's going to take years before my power bill offsets the extra 40 watts used. It would take exactly 1500 days (4 years) before the price you payed for the FX processor to have the power bill equal to the money saved. I don't know about you, but by then I would have already upgraded to the next AMD processors. I'm sorry, but no matter how you cut it, Intel is not worth the price here, rofl.

In other words, due to the price I save buying AMD processors, it is as if I am buying an Intel processor and paying no electric bills every 4 years. Meanwhile, I get tons of computations completed in distributed computing projects, while you couldn't even manage 1/20th my throughput in computational power.

Now watch as you are once again lost for words and try to derail the topic again, therefore admitting loss by default.

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You are so wrong that is time for you to grow up silly boy.
Common sense things are hard for you to grasp obviously. I am going to say this again and maybe this time you will understand. And finally you will stop saying nonsense about the costs for producing this chips. In order to steal market share from Intel in the sevrer space you must be able to compete in the High-End Desktop market. If you cant do that you cannot compete in the server space either which LOADS of money are there available. Now saying that AMD isn't doing well in the sever space either. Get a clue mmstick??? What was this deal with ARM all about mmstick?? Hmmm? They don't have what is needed to compete and its pretty obvious.

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AMD's server platform already does really well. I have a hard time locating people using Xeon's, AMD opteron platform is both more energy efficient due to the many low frequency cores. You could use a 4Ghz 8 core FX, or the more energy efficient, 16 core 2Ghz Opteron. Both perform the same in server environments, although the first only has the option to use one socket, while the other can use four sockets, but the second also has lower power consumption. The 'high end desktop' platform has nothing to do with servers. You may use a high end desktop as a low end server, but it is still not a fully fledged server. Have you ever used a server, physically? Ever actually touched one? Ever been in a server room? I've been in a hospital server room a lot of times, I have physically built several multiprocessor servers, the kind where you buy four 12-16 core opterons and put them all on the same motherboard.

Servers are all about the cores, not the frequencies. Because all work that happens in the server room is highly threaded, all cores will, and are, being used. Take a gander at Folding@home and other distributed computing projects. Guess who is number 1 in workflow? It's not Intel, it's quad processor opteron servers, armies of them. AMD does well in the server market, they have the helping hand of IBM who IS the server market, the high end server market. Neither AMD nor Intel can defeat IBM servers.

Also, I said nothing about the cost of producing chips, I only mentioned the cost of buying an AMD processor, and the cost of buying an equivalent Intel processor, the differentiation in price does not balance out, no matter how much you press your power consumption nonsense.

Just because one architecture works well on desktops, does not mean it will scale well with servers. And vice-verse, just because an architecture works well in a server environment, does not mean it will work well in a desktop environment. There are many factors at play that you are oblivious to. If you want to school me about processors, why don't you go to a university and learn about processor design, THEN come back and talk processors with me.

Why don't you get a clue Avon, you sound like a mumbling fool. You can't think of much to say so you simply want to run about in desperation, thinking as hard as you can for a comeback, and therefore end up repeating the same things. Why don't you tell me what the AMD+ARM thing was about? Combining AMD's desktop and server experience and technologies, with ARM, getting ARM up to scale for servers, using ARM cores for certain types of instructions, while using x86 cores for other instructions. In other words, this is about combining the best of two platforms. What does Intel have to say about this, I wonder. What is their answer? Why didn't ARM team up with Intel I wonder. I know, but do you? I think not. You have demonstrated that you know almost nothing about processor architecture design, your experience is nothing more than that of a amateur kid off the street just after he built his first computer. He's overly proud of himself and wants to demonstrate his new found experiences, except his experiences don't quite match up to professionals.

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LOL Now i understand, you are a professional idiot. LoL
I got tired reading all that crap you write every single time. You are obviously to slow to understand what i am talking about. Keep babbling about your own stuff. If they were doing so well in the server market they would of not been in this death spriral situation. Get a clue mmstick???
Here is something for you to get educated: http://online.barrons.com...102342.html?mod=BOL_da_hr

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Congratulations, you linked to an article that has almost nothing on the webpage, and proves nothing at the same time. Such a big boy Avon has grown up to be, he can Google the Internet and paste links now. However, the little boy still hasn't learned how to get proper links to proper sources in order to back himself up in an Internet argument. Better luck next time Avon. Your comebacks just get progressively more and more pathetic as they come. Are you ever going to respond to all my questions and arguments you've ignored? Where is that elusive program of yours that you can run with Intel that I can't run? What is this thing you can do on Intel that I can't do with AMD? The only thing you 'talk about' is your very own death spiral of ill-informed comments.

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That is because you are cheap to subscribe to read the rest of the article.
This is only for the pros. Get a clue mmstick???
Its too bad you are not clever enough to get the opportunity that has been given to you "by me" to aquire the knowledge and wisdom for AMD's future.

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I'm sorry, take a gander at the store pages of AMD FX processors, even the new ones, people are very happy with their purchases, despite you saying they don't have good products or have gone Intel. In fact, if that was true, why do I own 10 FX-8120s, and my friends all own Phenom IIs and FXs? I don't have a single person on Steam friends list with an Intel processor, which is funny.

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I'm afraid you did, here is your quote.

"Earth shuttering. LoL This does not mean anything for us consumers and there is a question of whether AMD and ARM will manage to steal market share from Intel and bring to both of them some reasonable profit that will justify this move.
4 10 [Posted by: AvONbaCK [Rating -3.19] | Date: 10/29/12 02:19:52 PM]"

Owned. Who says they can't use ARM processors in high end desktops? Has AMD stated they wouldn't use ARM and SeaMicro Fabric in desktop processors? No, they haven't.

Avon, you've been saying AMD will be off the market for how long now? It definitely doesn't look that way and no matter how many times you say it, it will not happen. If you want to say AMD is dead you need to provide proof from AMD themselves where they state that they are leaving the market for good. That's right, there is none, only loads of charts displaying what they have coming for the next few generations.

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@mmstick
Ummm if you check my other posts i mentioned some things that for you are obviously hard to grasp. This post i made was very short and brief. Futher down i did talk about AMD going out of the high-end desktop market, in fact AMD was never in the high-end and of corse i mentioned about tablets and mobile phones wich does include and i was implying about smart phones as well. Were is your glasses? You should check harder mmstick.
And its odd that you don't know the term about common sense. And by the way mmstick AMD has clearly mentioned about low powered devices recently mmstick. What sort of an AMD fan-boy are you if you don't know what has been said already?
Finally what i meant is that this does not mean anything for us serious desktop users.

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Except you didn't, you were too busy with your thumb wars thumbing down the comments of mine stating AMD+ARM will benefit the consumer, your pointless arguments against them and your pitiful AMD IS DEAD drivel didn't make you sound any more competent either. I think it is time you took a taste of reality, it is very much a different place than the fabricated existence you live in.

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Well you know its not my fault that you are blind to see what is really going on. AMD is really weak right now and cannot compete. They need a miracle to keep going on. Miracles don't happen, welcome to the real world mmstick.

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"Fantasy isn't reality, no matter how hard you try to press it. In the end, it remains as a delusion of your own mind."

What you have writen is a perfect match for you and the way that you look at AMD. All the things you said about AMD and no matter how much you try do defend them, you will remain in your own Fantasy world and to be delusional.

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Please enlighten me as to what I state that is fantasy, now enlighten me on what you have said that is actually coherently logical and well rooted with facts. If you want to call my facts fantasy, you need more psychological help than I can provide.

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@AvONbaCK - It is apparent that AMD were keeping some things mum for competitive reasons. Not even inside tech websites like Semiaccurate knew this one. All the while, the company was getting hammered in the media through the spreading of bad rumours causing insecurity in investors' minds. AMD's price partly reflects this. AMD is coming out swinging with their plans now shares have dipped below an acceptable base price. They are not sitting idly by, like Semiaccurate was reporting yesterday ("too little, too late), as competitors move in front. They are not introducing these projects today - they were working on them one year ago. That's why Jim Keller came on board a few months ago from Apple - to work on AMD's custom ARM chips.

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Whatever you say dude. But at $2.00 an AMD share, you're gonna be the loser if you don't invest (btw, thanks for helping to beat down the stock for me with your nonsense - for whatever it was worth). Intel are the ones going down town, its dominance waning. Even AMD's Hondo at 40nm based on a previous generation of APU is competitive with Intel's offering. Just wait until Jaguar comes - Intel will have to do some serious bribing in the channels - "How much did you say you needed Michael Dell? How about an amount that surpasses the total annual profit from you PC manufacturing over the next 4 years?"

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Sorry to say this but, shares have nothing to do with the products being sold. Shares are about company wealth, not products wealth. Whether or not products will increase company wealth is not guaranteed. There are many factors such as locking people into using only your products (Intel + Apple alliance), PC builders advertising Intel machines more than AMD machines, and popularity due to familiarity for example. People who buy hardware are a minority. You will find shares increase once the new Xbox and PS4 arrive for sure though, they will all have AMD components inside.

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"You will find shares increase once the new Xbox and PS4 arrive for sure though, they will all have AMD components inside."

I really hope that is not the case and hope that console makers would avoid using AMD stuff in their consoles and that they will make the wise choice to go with Intel.. That would take us back a few years again in gaming if they chose to go with AMD. Consoles has always been holding us back, So i hate them anyway. In fact if consoles did not exist we would be YEARS ahead and much more advanced in gaming and applications in general.
Retards like you of corse prefer this type of low quality stuff and junk, just like AMD cpu's which are garbage.

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It has already been cofirmed as much that all three console with use AMD GPU's and I think at least one of them will use AMD CPU as well. This won't end well every console is outdated by the time it reaches the market.

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I don't mind about The GPU's i am talking about the processor. The last thing that we don't need right now is for games to be coded for AMD processors and that is what AMD was targetting for its not only about the money because they know they cannot compete with Intel on the CPU.